Loving St. Petersburg

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  St. Petersburg, North-West Russia, Russian Federation
Friday, July 4, 2008

Our last stop in RUSSIA! We took an overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg which seemed so easy after our other journey. We arrived at 6:40 am and were taken to our hotel where they did have rooms available for us to at least shower. Then, at 9:00 am we met our local guide, Olga, for a walk around the city for an orientation. The weather this day was HOT. We walked down Nevsky Prospekt which was the main street in the city. We walked in the Yekaterininsky Gardens and learned about the classical style of architecture. St. Petersburg definitely felt European to us, very different than Moscow. We walked past the Kazaan Cathedral and Church of the Spilled Blood. Then we went to the Dvortsovaya Plaza where the Alexander Column and Hermitage is (the 2nd largest museum in the world after the Louvre). We finished up with lunch at a cafe where Layton had beef strogonoff and Jana had chicken broth with pancakes. Both were yummy.

Our group broke up then and we went to see the inside of the Church of the Spilled Blood where there were MANY mosaics of Christ's life and stories of the Bible

St. Petersburg Cathedral of Spilled Blood

. Such amazing artwork to try to take in. Afterwards, we went to a souvenir market to scope out a few things and guess what we saw? TCU and A&M Babushka dolls! AND they let us take a picture of them! So cool. While we were there we of course saw more brides and grooms getting their pictures made. It is really a neat thing to see but Layton was very glad to already be married! He does not think that Russia is a place to bring a female that is not your wife because there are so many weddings around it is bound to put pressure on the guy!? That evening, we went to see Swan Lake, the ballet, at Alexanderinsky Theater. We made it through all three acts! We had to go see a ballet in RUSSIA. Layton was a great sport too. When we walked out of the performance, it was 10:45 pm and the sun was still casting shadows on the buildings. White nights were definitely happening while we were there! It reminded us of Iceland when we visited in 2003.

Our second day, we visited the Hermitage which was AMAZING. It is the second largest museum in the world. We started the tour in the winter palace which was Catherine the Great's home. Elizabeth put most of the work into gathering the art and precious works but never lived in it. Much of the art was either a gift or acquired from other countries during the 13th - 20th, or taken from private collections during the Soviet Revolution

Video from Church of Spilled Blood

. Sad because most of the world's art is stolen from other countries, but the Russians just stole from themselves! The second part of the tour was the art of the world. You will see we took lots of pictures so we won't bore you with those details. The rest of the afternoon we spent walking up the stairs of St. Isaac's Cathedral, wandering past The Bronze Horseman, journeying over the Neva river where we saw a speed boat race, and ending our tour at St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral and Fortress.

Our last day we took a hydrofoil boat to Peterhof which is known as the Summer Palace. Fountains fill the acreage which make it a nice place to wander around. Most visitors don't even make it into the actual Palace. They just walk along the pathways and snap photos of the fountains. The best waterfalls were the one in the back of the palace, but we managed to see many, many more....before they turned the water off around 6pm. We had wanted to take a picture of a specific fountain with sunshine, and by the time we got back to it, the water was off. Oh well!! We had a nice dinner with Nellie, Ian, and Jack before heading out early in the morning to Latvia.

With Love from Russia!

RANDOM: After taking lots of pics of the Moscow metro, we were told that we could not take any photos in the St

another view

. Petersburg metro. So weird how the cities can be so different.

We learned random Russian letters by the time we were done. P is an R sound. Backwards N is an "I" sound. You say thank you with "spasiba". They used "nyet" ALOT. Nellie even coined the phrase "nyet schpeee (the sound a coke makes when you open it)" so we could order still water to drink. We got better as the time went on...as always.

Laundry was an interesting experience. We did a load at the hotel in St. Petersburg for only 40 rubles ($1.50 or so) which took 1.5 hours. It sort of beat up a few of our clothes but hey, they are CLEAN, right? Jana had one casualty, but nothing that will be a trip ender!

We called the rubles, rubles like Barney Ruble from the Flintstone. It was then shortened to Rubs.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

yet another, but check out the sky	traditional period clothing	the same architechture as St. Basils	day 2 for tour, beautiful day
amazing polychromatic dome	interesting fence	amazing mosiacs	Jesus healing
close up of ceiling	centerpeice of alter	St. Peter, Jesus, Paul	Jesus in the middle of ceiling
alter in middle of front	farther back	Jesus's birth	Jesus feeding thousands
Jesus riding donkey	mosaics went all the way up the wall	Jesus and the crown of thorns	the entire nativity scene
Alexander II tomb	Jesus on the cross	yet another pic of the front	view from Neskey Prospect
Statue of Pushkin	birds like to perch on him	babushka dolls for sale	so many colors
Baskin Robbins in Russian	House of Books building	general staff building at square	view of general staff building
chariot and horses	view of Hermitage and square	Richard trying to figure out his map	another view of general staff building
painter painting a nice view	A&M vs. TCU	brides everywhere	MORE brides
night out at the ballet	our wonderful seats with Mike and Jan	the view from our seats	shot of second ballerina and guy
we are turning into swans	another shot of stage	beautiful dancing in dry ice fog	The Hermitage tour
don't wear high heels on nice floors	painting on ceiling of front stairs	don't expose yourself	cool statue in front stairs
Peter and the Greek god of wisdom	war heros in Napoleon room	hallway of war heros	Nice Art on wall
we really like these guys hair	white and gold deoration	hall for the thrown chair	ceiling molds
match the floor decorations	mosaic copied from Greek design	a different view	details of the arches are cool
coo coo clock	peacock spread feathers on hours	owl's eyes spin and rooster crows	tiny mosaic desing on tables
art inlayed on table	random statue with leaf coverage	Infant Child	people waiting in line to se painting
da Vince Madona and Child	closer up	another version of Madona and Child	Tizian's Christ carrying the cross
felt "cool" and clean	cool blue, white and gold room	nice painting in same room	hallway of copied Bible paintings
ceiling was awesome	really cool	floor matched the ceiling here too	Rafaello's Madona and Child
Michaelangelo's Crouching Boy	Some people are funny	Hall of Rembrandt's paintings	our guide talking about statue
Rembrandt's Prodical Son	Rebrandt's Descending the Cross	Van Gogh's Thatched Cottages	Signae's Port of Marseilles
Matisse's Dance	Picasso's Brick Factory	Dvortsovaya Plaza	Alexander Pole
closer up	Admiralty	St. Isaac's from front	funny English
ANOTHER bride	St. Issac's from the front	one of the pillars	cool view from top
a view from the top again	LOTS of cranes	neat sculpture and nice grass	Neva River view
really cool view of yellow building	The Bronze Horseman	you know what this is	close up of bronze horseman
Layton eating a yummy dog	with a nice view	dog with carrots too!	what a mess!
front of The Hermitage	Neva scene	Neva with fountain and boats	view of St. Peter and Paul's cathedral
racing speed boats	they were roaring by	they were cool to watch	St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral
Peter's Gate	looking back up the Neva	Mc D's in Russia	fireworks in the day?
hydrofoil to Peterhof	amazing waterfalls filled this palace acreage	monkey arms at Peterhof	this place ROCKED!
Samson Fountain and the Sea Chanel Out to Sea	Eve fountain	The Grand Cascade	the palace
cool gold statues	looking back from Lower Gardens	beatiful church connected to Palace	fountains and grass
we wanted to get a better shot with sun	cool lion and faces shooting water	fianlly complete in 2000 because of wars	another cascade
Jana playing Russian hottie	looking across the pool	a view from the top terrace	industrial stuff in background
a shot down the middle	Layton's senior portrait	oops, the water is gone	close up of the front of the palace
Layton being a statue	now Jana's turn	full shot of front of Palace	front the very front gate

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